Doors and Windows

My horrible cold relapsed, so I stayed home this week. But Miss Betsy and I ordered the HBO movie Temple Grandin (see my last blog) from Netflix and watched it the other night. We were left literally speechless and awestruck. It is, by far, one of the very best movies I have ever seen! Claire Danes plays autistic Temple Grandin to absolute perfection. Judge for yourself; See the movie trailer at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpkN0JdXRpM



Temple Grandin’s mother never gave up – and neither did Temple. The movie made me think about how important it is to never give up on children who appear to be low performers.

To Temple, being autistic was like being trapped between two windows – it was almost impossible to communicate through the glass. And she had tremendous difficulty with change. In transitioning from high school to college to Doctor of Animal Science, she would act out each phase of her life by walking through an actual door, window, or gate. And her mother was always there for her.

In her book Thinking in Pictures, Temple says that when she reads, she translates written words into color movies, complete with sound, or simply stores a photo of the written page to be read later. When she retrieves the material, she sees a photocopy of the page in her imagination. She can then read it like a Teleprompter. She pictured – then developed – a deep touch pressure device ("squeeze machine") that helped her overcome problems of oversensitivity to touch, and reduce her nervousness. Today, livestock handling facilities she has designed – based on the same principles – are found worldwide.

Perhaps at Frankie Lemmon, a dream is born in the mind of a child. Who’s to say this dream will never come true? Do we “close the door” and tell the child to give up his or her dream? Or do we encourage the child to keep trying?